Aliens didn’t make this art; organic farmers did.

To mark October as “non-GMO month,” activists from the Non-GMO Project teamed up with the brand Our Little Rebellion (maker of those addictive Popcorners snacks) to create an unusual billboard. It’s not in the middle of a city; it’s in a cornfield in Nebraska.

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The stunt, which took more than a week to complete and covers nine acres, depicts “crop art” that spells out the words “Join the Corn Revolution” and leads to the brand’s website to learn more. Not many people will see it, though, unless they get the word out online of course.

According to a press release, today, only 8% of corn acreage is currently devoted to non-GMO crops. The art was installed on the fields of family farmer and Our Little Rebellion supplier Jim McGowan. His farm, one of the 59 small-scale farms in the Our Little Rebellion supply chain, has been in the family for 130 years, and he’s been farming non-GMO corn for 12 years.

While multiple expert scientific panels have concluded that genetically modified foods are safe to eat, fewer than 40% of Americans agree. Increasingly, this is why brands are looking to remove genetically engineered ingredients from their food. This will necessarily start increasing demand for products like GMO-free corn, and the trend could accelerate as a law passed this year takes effect that will require brands to disclose on the label whether they use GM ingredients (though the label can just be a link to a website to learn more, rather than a full label disclosure).

“Corn is the one of the most abundant crops in the U.S., but it’s primarily available in genetically modified form,” says Paul Nardone, CEO at BFY Brands, the parent company of Our Little Rebellion, in a statement. “We’re leading the charge for making non-GMO ingredients like corn available in a scaled capacity so shoppers have more non-GMO options in the grocery aisles.”

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About the author

Jessica Leber is a staff editor and writer for Fast Company's Co.Exist. Previously, she was a business reporter for MIT’s Technology Review and an environmental reporter at ClimateWire.